D50 Highlight warnings.. or not?

[work-page]

I went for a stroll in a forest this weekend, and due to the lighting had

problems galore getting proper exposure. The strong sun and some fog combined

to get a blinking highlight warning in most every shot. The histograms

confirmed that a lot of the exposure was bunched up at the right hand side.

 

So, whenever I ran into the situation, I dialed in about 2/3 stops of

compensation which made the highlight warnings a lot less severe. But when I

uploaded the (jpeg fine 800iso) pictures, I found that the original shots that

gave warnings weren't really blown out. Instead, those where I dialed in

compensation looked decidedly muddy and featureless..

 

This begs the question wether the blinking highlight warning is really useful

for pinpointing the exposure? Anyone else use it, or are you going by the

histograms? And if so, how (much) do you compensate?<div></div>

[michael_ferron1]

On a shot like this if I have a few blinkies I don't worry much. If the whole sky is blinking then I dial down up to a whole stop. A 2 stop ND grad filter will help hold the highlights back as well.

[Peter_in_PA]

Depends on the content. Sometimes an area will be white white and will appear to be blowing

out highlights.

 

I've experienced the same thing, but I've found, shooting RAW, that I can usually dial up an

exposure that's just a tad "under-exposed" but when it's a tad "over-exposed" I hate it. So I

err on the side of caution, but normally bracket like crazy.

 

NICE shot, by the way!

[aaron l]

Usually when the blinkies start, the image isn't totally blown in those areas. Perhaps only in one channel or very close to it. Use the histogram, though in a real complicated lighting situation, you'll have a tough time. Fog seems to be extra work when thinking about exposures because it does need extra exposure to make it lighten up. Everything has an extra haze of white, fooling you into that 2/3 stop compensation.

 

The blinkies help warn me if something is on the edge & I use it as a general alert. But, I don't live by them.

[titospna]

I think that the beauty of digital is that you can saturate a scene with numerous shots, bracketing and adjusting your exposure without being penalized from any developing costs. Just pretend you're a National Geographic photographer and don't come home until you have several hundred shots on your card. From this perspective, don't worry about the histogram. You are bound to get a shot or two that you like, plus there's always post processing to help you out. I would rather worry about losing the light, (and the way it dances with the fog) than I would about the histogram. Congrats on the photo.

[chris_leck]

I usually push the exposure pretty far to the right. To me, lack of a few blinkies can mean danger of underexposure. One clipped channel can cause them and in-camera sharpening will cause them to show up faster.

[darrengold]

It's a difficult question. The D50 is designed a little bit more for people who want to print straight out of the camera. As a result the exposure is a little more to the right and tends to blow highlights quite easily. I routinely apply -1/3 to -2/3 EV to prevent this. It can make the pictures look a little muddy but it does stop the highlights from blowing.

 

I tend to use the blinkies as a guide as the histogram on the D50 only shows the green channel. If your picture doesn't have much green in it, it can be very misleading.

 

The image below is an example of a picture taken under difficult lighting. There is little green in it and the histogram shoes that. To have got that histogram to the right would have blown it completely. The RGB histogram is very different. A little adjustment in levels gives a good result. I am quite happy to adjust levels on all my pictures rather than blow the highlights.

 

To answer your question...On the D50, blinkies not histogram.<div></div>

[darrengold]

Green channel<div></div>

[darrengold]

RGB channels<div></div>

[darrengold]

After levels adjustment<div></div>

[Peter_in_PA]

Thanks for those excellent examples! This, by the way, is why I kinda take issue with the idea

of "unaltered" photos out of a camera. No such thing. The photo was altered by the camera.

For you to do a level adjustment or sharpening... not image manipulation imho... but that's

off topic. Thanks, I didn't realize my histogram was green channel only! My next camera will

have complete histograms. I really wish I had them now, but couldn't afford a D200 when I

bought mine.

[g-man1]

The single channel histogram is not as useful to me; I tend to just look at the image on the LCD.

[work-page]

Many thanks to all of you! And especially to Darren for explaining the green channel aspect of the histogram. I guess I'll stick to the blinkies then and bracket when they get too bad..